Kaytlin Furlong EDR 627 November 7, 2017

Strat Chat Two

Completed on November 6, 2017

Strategy used: I See…I Wonder…I Know…

Source for strategy: Oczkus, L. (2004). Super six comprehension strategies: 35
lessons and more for reading success. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon.
Purpose for using strategy: To focus students’ attention on the illustrations and
headings found in informational texts, in order to prompt them to pose questions
about the content and locate answers to those questions as they read.
Text used: National Geographic Kids: Saving Animal Babies by Amy Shields
Grade level: Third Grade
Number of students: 26 students (whole class)

Lesson Plan:
Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1
Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring
explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.7
Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words
in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how
key events occur).

Activating prior knowledge: I will begin this lesson by activating students’ prior
knowledge of what a nonfiction book is. We have been reading an informational text
about penguins during our Guided Reading lessons over the past two weeks;
therefore, the whole class has become familiar with the meaning and purpose of an
informational text. I will remind them of the Penguin Chicks text that they have been
reading and tell them that I will be introducing a new informational text to them.

Introduction: After activating prior knowledge, I will show students the text that
we will be reading: National Geographic Kids: Saving Animal Babies. I will place the
book on the ELMO document camera, showing students only the front cover of the
text at this time. I will ask a volunteer student to read the title aloud to the class. I
will explain that this too is a nonfiction text, which means that we will be gathering
information from it as we read. I will then draw the “I See…I Wonder…I Know…”
chart on the board and distribute a stack of sticky notes to each table group (each
group has 4-5 students). I will explain that for this lesson, we will be working
together to decide upon answers for each of the columns for the chart that I have
drawn on the board. After viewing the pages that I have chosen from the text, via the
document camera, students will talk quietly in their small groups and decide upon
what they would like to write or draw on their sticky notes to place under the “I
See…” column of the chart. For the “I Wonder…” column, they should try their best
to write questions about the images and/or headings that they saw. Each group will
then designate a person to bring their sticky notes up to the board and place them

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under the corresponding columns. I will explain that the final column (“I Know…”)
will not be completed until after we have read through the text together.

Modeling: Because this is the first time that my students will be using this strategy,
and because I have chosen to teach it to the whole class (meaning that there are a
variety of reading/writing levels, as well as English capabilities due to the
Spanish/English dual-immersion nature of the class), this will be a very model-
oriented lesson. This is also the reason that I have chosen to have students work in
small groups, rather than complete handouts independently at their desks. I want
everyone to participate, feel confident, and learn from this lesson. I will begin
modeling the lesson by showing students what my expectations are for their sticky
note responses. I will open to pp. 24-25 in the book, via the document camera, and
talk about the images and headings that I see on that particular page. I will write or
draw my responses to “I See…” on a sticky note (also under the document camera)
to model what I see on these pages. For example, “I see a turtle with a cast”, “I see a
man holding a snake”, etc. I will then model responses to the “I Wonder…” column
for these particular pages. For example, “I wonder why the turtle is wearing a cast?”
“I wonder if that snake is going to hurt the man?” I will then place these sticky notes
under the corresponding columns under the chart on our whiteboard. Following
this, I will read these pages aloud to the students and we will complete the “I
Know…” column for these particular questions. For example, “I know that the turtle
has a cracked shell.” “I know that the man is a vet and he is helping the snake.” I will
place these sticky notes under the corresponding column on our whiteboard chart
as well. I will then ask students if they have any questions about what they will be
doing throughout the lesson before they begin to work semi-independently (in small
groups).

Transition to small group work: As previously mentioned, this lesson will not
involve any independent work. During the “independent” practice time, students
will be working in small groups to decide upon responses for the “I See…I
Wonder…I Know…” columns of the chart on the whiteboard. During this time, I will
open to pp. 6-7 in the book, via the document camera, so that students have time to
look at the pictures and heading on these two pages. We will spend 3 minutes on the
“I See” portion of this lesson. They will discuss what they see, as a whole group, and
designate one person in their group to draw or write what they see on these two
pages. After 3 minutes, I will have one person from each group bring the notes from
their group up to the board and place them under the corresponding “I See” column
on our whiteboard chart. They will then have an additional 3-5 minutes to discuss
what they saw and determine questions that they would like to ask and place under
the “I Wonder” column. I will be walking around the class during the “I Wonder”
discussion time to make sure that students are staying on task and that all students
are participating in their small group discussions. Again, after these 5 minutes, one
student from each group will come up to the whiteboard and place their notes under
the corresponding column. I will then return to the document camera and read the
text aloud to the students. Following the reading, the small groups will have 5 more
minutes to discuss what they learned, after reading these two pages, and write these

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statements on sticky notes to place under the “I Know…” column. I will encourage
them to listen for answers to their “wonderings”, but also to include anything else
that they learned. As before, one student from each group will come up to place
their notes under the corresponding column.

Wrap-up: To conclude this lesson, I will have each group read aloud their “I Know”
sticky notes. As a class, we will have a discussion about all that we learned from the
Saving Animal Babies book. We will talk about how this “I See…I Wonder…I Know…”
chart helped us focus our attention on what was important in the text, as well as
organize our thoughts.

Reflection:
Effectiveness of strategy: I think that I may have been a little overzealous by
introducing this strategy to the whole class at once, given the wide differences in
students’ learning abilities. My mentor teacher asked if I wanted to do this strategy
with just a small group, as I had done with my first Strat Chat; however, I wanted to
challenge myself and I also wanted to challenge the students to work together in
small groups and learn from one another. This was a very new concept for this
particular group of students though—I have not seen them do any small group
work, apart from quick discussions in their groups, thus far this year. That being
said, I was quite impressed by how well they worked together to complete what was
asked of them throughout this strategy. Naturally, many of them needed a “push”
from me various times throughout their group work time to remind them that
everyone should be participating in the discussion and contributing their ideas.
However, I think that designating just one person to write down the ideas for the
whole group was a good idea because it required all of them to talk to one another,
and it also took away the fear of writing in English for my ELL students who don’t
yet feel very confident performing this task.
The students seemed fairly engaged throughout this lesson, though I know
that I lost the attention of some of my “higher-level” students because I was trying to
move slower in order to make sure that everyone was understanding what was
being taught. This is the main reason why I wonder if I should have taught this
strategy separately to each of our reading level groups. Nonetheless, the text that I
chose seemed to interest the majority of the students; every group was able to
decide on “wonderings” about what they saw on the pages. I think that the students
enjoyed that this strategy didn’t require them to read through text and try to
comprehend what it was saying to them. Rather, they were asked to focus on the
images, try to make sense of what they saw, and ask questions about these pictures.
I believe that this was particularly intriguing for this group of students because
reading English text still intimidates many of them, given the dual-immersion nature
of the classroom. When I was originally planning this lesson, I thought that I would
have the students complete “I See…I Wonder…I Know…” handouts as a small group.
I am glad that I changed my mind and decided to have us create a large chart on the
whiteboard. I believe that the sticky notes element of the strategy helped
tremendously in keeping their interest, because they really enjoy coming up to the
whiteboard.

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Things I would change: I would really like to try this strategy again with these
students. I think that it was very useful for them to learn how to focus on the images
and ask questions about what they saw. However, I had intended to have the
students create sticky notes for more than one heading and set of images in the
book, and that did not end up happening. I think that I may have taken too much
time with the modeling portion of the strategy because I was afraid that it was too
soon to release them to their small group work. However, because they were
working in small groups, rather than independently, I probably could have released
them much sooner. Therefore, if I did the strategy as a whole class again, I would
really focus on time management in order to be able to move forward in the text.
Another idea is to have each small group work on a different page in the text. I think
this could be an excellent idea. They could each create the sticky notes for their
corresponding page in the text and then present their learning to the rest of the
class.

Peer feedback: Tatianna and Nicola had multiple positive things to share with me
about my strategy, so that was very encouraging. They both thought that I did a
great job modeling the strategy to the class by creating sticky notes for each column
of the chart for a different page in the text. Additionally, each of them commented on
my scaffolding skills and how this likely offered a lot of support to my students,
especially my ELLs. Nicola said that she liked how I concluded the lesson by having
them read their “I Knows” aloud to the rest of the class, which I really liked as well
because this creates agency in the classroom. They both challenged me to do this
strategy again with my students, especially because I was only able to complete one
page of the text.

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